Clinton Wins Pennsylvania. Where Does the Race Go From Here?
With a healthy victory by nine percentage points over Senator Barack Obama in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, Senator Hillary Clinton has ensured that the race for the Democratic presidential nomination will continue. The margin of victory for the New York Senator was slightly higher than recent polls had been projecting, but she had originally enjoyed a larger lead going into the primary campaign. The exit polls showed that both candidates clung tightly to the voting blocs that have emerged over the course of dozens of primaries, with Clinton enjoying the support of women, white, older, and working class voters, and Obama securing the support of African Americans, young people, and more affluent voters.
The question remains: Will this victory be enough to shake up the race for the Democratic nomination? Both campaigns answer this question with their own spin, developing distinct narratives to describe the Pennsylvania results. For the Clinton campaign, the clear victory shows that despite being significantly outspent, Senator Clinton was able to pull off another big win in one of the large, important swing states. She asserts that because she has won nearly all of the crucial battleground states, she will be better suited to defeat Republican Senator John McCain in the fall. The narrative of the Obama campaign explains that their candidate was down 20 percentage points in the polls going into Pennsylvania, and that he impressively narrowed that gap. Obama also points out that he is still ahead in the pledged delegate count and the popular vote, and has won the majority of states.
Looking ahead to the upcoming Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 6, many in the Clinton camp agree that Indiana is a must win for her. Obama has held a consistent double-digit lead in North Carolina, a state with a large African American population; more than 9 in 10 African Americans went for him in Pennsylvania. To stay in the race, there is no doubt that Clinton needs to keep winning. Her campaign hopes that a string of victories to close the primary season would tilt the momentum of the race in her favor. This would put her in a strong position, according to her campaign, to convince superdelegates (party leaders and elected officials) that she is the strongest candidate to go up against McCain in the fall.
If Clinton were to win Indiana on May 6, and continue to pick up wins like West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico, she may stay in the race until the convention in August. Since neither candidate will likely win (through pledged delegates) the necessary 2,025 delegates needed to seal up the nomination, it would be up to the superdelgates to decide the nominee. Clinton would try to ensure that delegates from Florida and Michigan be seated after they were disqualified when the two states moved up their primaries against party rules. She would continue to make the argument that she can win the large swing states, while Obama would assert that he would be able to mobilize many new voters, and thus be competitive in many traditionally red states. He would also argue that if the superdelegates overturned the pledged delegates, who represent voters, his supporters might not turn out in November, feeling that the election was stolen from them.
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